中国企业淘金体育赛事转播市场

最近，阿里巴巴集团斥资10亿美元收购东南亚最大的电子商务公司，吸引了大量眼球。这家电子商务巨头在几天前又悄然完成了另一笔规模稍小却同样令人感兴趣的交易。

在这起交易中，阿里巴巴旗下子公司阿里体育（这个公司名称多少有些缺乏创意）——公司小股东包括新浪和一家马云控制的私人股本公司——表示，他们投资了“数百万美元”在中国推广橄榄球运动，作为赢取该项运动独家转播权的代价。

马云与橄榄球运动的管理机构世界橄榄球联合会签订了在中国引入该项运动的协议。他们的目标包括在未来十年内将中国的橄榄球爱好者从现在的1300人发展至100万人。

在中国推广橄榄球？从投资的角度看，这对阿里巴巴来说只是小打小闹，不太重要，回报似乎也很有限。

但这次交易显现出中国的一大趋势——网络巨头开始与他们能发掘到的体育项目签订转播协议。

2015年最值得注意的一场交易，莫过于腾讯控股与美国职业篮球联赛（NBA）签订的价值7亿美元的六年合作协议。乐视也花费了数千万美元购买120项体育赛事的数字版权，其中包括英格兰足球超级联赛和温布尔顿网球公开赛等。而由苏宁支持的PPTV也在2020年之前以每年7500万美元的价格购买了西班牙足球甲级联赛的转播权。

就像体育赛事的繁荣促使了娱乐体育节目电视网（ESPN）在美国的崛起一样，这种潮流即将在中国出现，各公司正在为此做好准备。根据品牌咨询公司Millward Brown China的数据，在业余和职业体育运动上的花销大约占中国GDP的0.6%，这一比例在美国是2.6%。中国政府正在努力鼓励百姓参与体育运动，声称国家的体育产业规模应当在2025年之前扩大至现在的五倍，达到7800亿美元。

而橄榄球，就是阿里巴巴视频网站上增加的赛事类型之一。

这项运动的增长潜力巨大。中国橄榄球协会表示，国内目前只有1337名注册橄榄球运动员。而世界橄榄球联合会表示，全球打橄榄球的人多达800万。

在线视频广告的潜力同样巨大，这些公司之所以都迫切地想要建立内容库，是因为根据iResearch的推测，这一市场的规模预计将在未来三年内翻倍，达到85亿美元。（财富中文网）

译者：严匡正

Alibaba’s $1 billion deal last weekto gain control of the biggest e-commerce company in Southeast Asia overshadowed a smaller, but in ways equally intriguing, deal that the e-commerce giant closed a few days earlier.

In that one, an Alibaba offshoot (somewhat unimaginatively) called Alisports—which includes as minority investors Sina and a private equity firm controlled by Jack Ma—said it invested “multi-millions of dollars” to develop rugby in the country in exchange for exclusive broadcast streaming rights to the sport.

Jack Ma’s bid to bring rugby to China was signed with the sport’s governing body, World Rugby, and includes the goal of developing 1 million rugby players in China over the next decade—from all of 1,300 players today.

As an investment, it’s too small to be significant for Alibaba and the payoff—rugby in China?—looks limited.

But the deal is part of a trend in China in which the big Internet players have been signing all the streaming sports deals they find. The most notable deals over the past year include the NBA’s reported $700 million, six-year deal with Tencent Holdings TCEHY -0.60% . LeTV has spent tens of millions on digital rights to 120 sports properties including English Premier League soccer games and Wimbledon tennis. PPTV, backed by retailer Suning, paid $75 million a year through 2020 for Spanish Liga soccer matches.

The companies are preparing for a sports boom in China like the one that has fueled ESPN’s rise in the America. Spending on all sports—recreational and professional— is about 0.6% of China’s GDP, compared to the U.S. rate of 2.6%, according tobrand consultancy Millward Brown China. China’s central government has enacted policies to boost participation and said the country’s sports industry should grow five-fold to $780 billion by 2025.

Rugby, then, is one more sport filling out the roster of matches at Alibaba’s video sites.

And the potential growth of the sport, is, well, rich:the Chinese Rugby Football Association says China has only 1,337 registered rugby players. World Rugby says 8 million play the sport globally.

As is the potential for online video advertising, the reason all these companies are rushing to build a library of content: iResearch says the market is expected to more than double in the next three years to $8.5 billion.